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The All-Star break has passed and it's officially NBA stretch-run time. Each team has between 21 and 25 games remaining. Here are 10 biggest storylines to follow between now and the end of the regular season. 

1. James Harden in Philadelphia

Joel Embiid has never had an elite playmaking point guard. Now he does. The 76ers don't project as the same kind of defensive threat in the postseason without Simmons, but they'll be far more formidable offensively. Daryl Morey is betting points scored are worth more than points surrendered. It's a bet he had to make. 

Seeing how Harden meshes with Embiid, who wants the ball in the post often, will be important to watch over these next 24 games for the Sixers, as will how Harden looks altogether. He wasn't the same player in Brooklyn, at least not consistently, as he was in Houston. The Sixers need something closer to the Houston version. 

2. Ben Simmons in Brooklyn

The flip side of the Harden coin, and it could be a toss that Brooklyn ends up winning. That depends on a lot of factors, first and foremost being whether Simmons can find his peak form over the next seven weeks. If he does, his defense is going to be huge come playoff time (assuming the Nets, currently No. 8 in the East, get there). But don't sleep on Simmons' offensive upside with Brooklyn. 

This is a perimeter-oriented team, meaning Simmons will have an open lane to attack as a driver, poster, cutter and roller. He'll have a lot of shooting around him, like he did in his first playoff run with the Sixers when he looked like a future MVP candidate. We'll see if New York lifts its vaccine mandate. If it does, the roles are clearly defined in Brooklyn. Kyrie Irving is the point guard. The scoring starts with Kevin Durant. Simmons fills in the half-court gaps while excelling on defense and in transition. 

Or, Simmons isn't ready to play at a high level and the vaccine mandate stays and Durant ultimately has too much on his plate to save the Nets. We shall see. 

3. The Lakers' last gasp

Coming out of the All-Star break, the Lakers are the West's No. 9 seed at 27-31. They're five games up on San Antonio for the final play-in spot and six games back of Denver for the No. 6 seed. It's looking like a the Lakers are going have to play their way into the dance once again.

To even get that chance, LeBron James is going to have to carry a lone-star load for at least the next three weeks as Anthony Davis is out with a sprained foot. If ... and this might be a big if ... Davis can come back by late March, the Lakers could be a dangerous 7 or 8 seed. But they have to get there first. LeBron has been superb all season, but he'll need help.

The Lakers have shown promise with no-big LeBron lineups. Russell Westbrook will have the open lane he needs to have any chance at being a useful player. Malik Monk and Austin Reaves are going to have to be big contributors the rest of the way. Carmelo Anthony needs to get back and get hot. Let's see if the Lakers really want this thing or if they're one or two tough games from throwing in the towel. 

4. Celtics take aim at contention

Boston is the hottest team in the league coming out of the break. The Celtics have won 16 of their last 21 games and nine of their last 10. They have jumped out of the play-in tournament (barely) and are just two games back of a top-three seed. 

Since Jan. 1, Boston owns the top defense (by a wide margin) and net rating in the league. Equally important, they're a top-10 offense over that span. They're passing the ball more effectively. Jayson Tatum is making quick decisions -- not as much sizing up defenders for three seconds before going into an east-west dribble sequence that ends in a contested jumper. Straight-line drives have shown up more frequently. 

The Celtics are a slow-paced team, but being decisive in the half-court is paramount. The addition of Derrick White helps with this. He keeps things moving. A connector, as they say. 

The Celtics have shooters to take advantage when Tatum and Jaylen Brown are leveraging their downhill advantages, even if their team percentages don't indicate as much. Tatum is better than his 32 percent 3-point percentage and he'll need to show that. 

Brown can makes 3s. Marcus Smart is streaky (more cold than hot), but a decent enough threat when he takes the right shots. Josh Richardson is quietly having a nice season. Grant Williams is shooting 45 percent from 3 and is on the verge of a 50-40-90 season. 

I like the Celtics. I picked them to finish No. 4 in the Eastern Conference before the season (I also picked Atlanta to finish third, so take my predictions for whatever you feel they're worth). I also wrote that breaking up Tatum and Brown might end up being the last card Boston had to play when it just didn't look like they were ever going to find any traction. Hey, things change. I'm back on board. I think the Celtics are a sleeper contender in a pretty wide-open East. I really do believe that. They'll be one of the teams I'm keeping a close eye on the rest of the way. 

5. Stephen Curry's shooting

Curry is having by far the worst shooting season of his career. Coming out of the break, he's at 37.9 percent from 3 and 42.7 percent overall. His on-offs are still great, and for anyone else 38 percent from 3 on over 12 attempts per game would be astounding. But Curry isn't anybody else. The Warriors are not the same level of contender if Curry is a just another great player. They're different when he's different. 

This is especially true because we still don't know if Klay Thompson will be his old self by the postseason. Things are looking pretty good on the offensive end, but Thompson's defense is a major factor for a Golden State team that has slipped considerably on the defensive end of late. To that point, Draymond Green has to get back. We don't know when that will be. All the more reason that the Warriors need Curry to ride that record-setting All-Star performance into a hot closing stretch. 

6. Jokic, Giannis or Embiid for MVP?

It feels like a three-man race unless Curry gets scorching hot the rest of the way and the Warriors somehow overtake the Suns for the No. 1 seed, but even then, if these three hold their positions, it feels like one of them is going to take home the hardware. This is going to be a compelling race to watch play out. 

For my money, Jokic has been the best player all season and deserves the MVP at this moment, but if I had to guess who the voters would reward if they submitted ballots today, I'd say Embiid. I think the Simmons situation breaks the tie between him and Jokic. It's similar to when Russell Westbrook won the year Kevin Durant left him for Golden State. Simmons left Embiid in the lurch, and he still has them in the No. 3 seed just two games back of No. 1.

Giannis is right there, as well. There's some voter fatigue and the Bucks have had some weird showings. As of now, there's no way you can give the award to Giannis over Embiid when Embiid, with a worse supporting cast pre-Harden, has led his team to a better record. But that could change. All of this could change. This is a race that is far from over. 

7. Suns without Chris Paul

Could Chris Paul's fractured thumb be a blessing in blessing in disguise for Phoenix? It sounds strange, but hear me out: The Suns come out of the All-Star break with a seven-loss lead over No. 2 Golden State -- which owns the third-toughest remaining schedule per Positive Residual -- for the No. 1 overall seed. They might not even have to play .500 ball the rest of the way to retain their spot. They're more than good enough to do that without Paul. 

Now, assuming they do that, this injury virtually guarantees that Paul goes into the postseason healthy. The timetable is 6-8 weeks for reevaluation. The regular season is over in seven weeks. Yes, Paul will have to regain his rhythm and conditioning, but if that's the tradeoff for effectively bubble-wrapping one of the unluckiest injury-prone stars of his era until the playoffs, I would think Phoenix takes that all day. The risk of Paul getting injured at the wrong time is a cloud that hangs too heavy over this team. Now he can't get hurt sitting in street clothes. Unless this injury doesn't heal right, the Suns are assured of healthy Paul in the first round. 

8. Wild Wild East

Five teams are within three games of the East's No. 1 seed: Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Milwaukee. On the flip side, the No. 5 Bucks are only one game up in the loss column on the No. 7 Raptors.

Could you imagine the defending champions having to go through the play-in bracket just to make the playoffs? 

Cleveland is the team to watch here. They have the league's third-easiest remaining schedule and are just two games back of the No. 1 seed. Nobody considers the Cavs a contender. For the record, I'm one of those people. But we're seven weeks from the start of the playoffs a Cleveland is right there. 

To me, this is awesome. The NBA has always been too predictable, and this season nobody can honestly tell you they have any idea what is going to happen. The Nets are currently a play-in team and they could realistically win it all. To say the conference title race is wide open would be an understatement. The East playoffs are going to be a party, and positioning starts now. 

9. Hawks trying to avoid disaster

It's now or never for Atlanta. To come within two games of the Finals only to fall into the lottery the very next season would be a disaster. And it's right on the cusp of happening. The Hawks come out of the break clinging the No. 10 seed, the final play-in spot, one game up on the No. 11 Wizards. 

We know the deal with the Hawks. They're an elite offense and a terrible defense. They feel a lot like the Lillard-McCollum Blazers in that if they can just find a way to be average defensively, they're dangerous. That's what got them on their run in last year's playoffs, but we're seeing now the power of matchups. They played two very offensively flawed teams in the postseason in the Knicks and the Sixers. The Hawks weren't as good as they looked defensively during that run. 

But they don't have to be this bad, either. Clint Capela has to have a good defensive stretch run, and he's capable. I'd like to see more time for Onyeka Okongwu with Trae Young/offensive-oriented lineups. John Collins needs to get back from his foot strain and have a great closing stretch. 

Kevin Huerter has been good. De'Andre Hunter should make a defensive difference. The pieces make a lot of sense for the Hawks. I wasn't alone in calling them a contender this season. They haven't put anything together yet this season, but there's still a chance. If Atlanta can get hot to close the season and make it through the play-in, that is not a team that a potentially vulnerable 1- or 2-seed is going to want to play in the first round. 

10. Wild-card Nuggets

Denver is three games back of the No. 3 seed with the easiest remaining schedule. This becomes a lot more interesting when you consider Jamal Murray and/or Michael Porter Jr. could be coming back before the playoffs. If both those guys come back and are even close to the players we know they can be, Denver becomes a legit threat to win the West and compete for a title. Nikola Jokic, for my money, has been the MVP to this point. Nobody is talking about the Nuggets. If they make a run over the final stretch and get their second- and third-best player back, that will change.